Sister Joan Chittister famously said, "We are each called to go through life reclaiming the planet an inch at a time until the Garden of Eden grows green again." Reflecting on that journey -- a blog at a time -- is the focus of this site.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue‏

It's a Saturday afternoon and the laundry is humming and the dogs are snoozing and I'm catching up on bills and email -- and one of the emails included a link to Religion Dispatches and a piece by Cody Sanders entitled "Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue." It's a great piece, but here's the quote that hooked me:

If this were a hostage situation, we would have dispatched the SWAT team by now. And in many ways, it is.

Our children and teenagers are being held hostage by a religious and political rhetoric that strives to maintain the status quo of anti-gay heterosexist normativity. The messages of Focus on the Family and other organizations actively strive to leave the most vulnerable among us exposed to continuous attack.

The good news is that we don't need a SWAT team. We just need quality education on sexuality and gender identity in our schools and more faithful and courageous preaching and teaching in our churches.

Let the people say "AMEN!" And then let the people read the rest here and THEN let the people get busy!

A theology of anti-gay bullying

Anti-gay bullying is a theological issue because it has a theological base. I find it difficult to believe that even those among us with a vibrant imagination can muster the creative energy to picture a reality in which anti-gay violence and bullying exist without the anti-gay religious messages that support them.

These messages come in many forms, degrees of virulence, and volumes of expression. The most insidious forms, however, are not those from groups like Westboro Baptist Church. Most people quickly dismiss this fanaticism as the red-faced ranting of a fringe religious leader and his small band of followers.

More difficult to address are the myriad ways in which everyday churches that do a lot of good in the world also perpetuate theologies that undergird and legitimate instrumental violence. The simplistic, black and white lines that are drawn between conceptions of good and evil make it all-too-easy to apply these dualisms to groups of people. When theologies leave no room for ambiguity, mystery and uncertainty, it becomes very easy to identify an “us” (good, heterosexual) versus a “them” (evil, gay).

Additionally, hierarchical conceptions of value and worth are implicit in many of our theological notions. Needless to say, value and worth are not distributed equally in these hierarchies. God is at the top, (white, heterosexual) men come soon after and all those less valued by the culture (women, children, LGBT people, the poor, racial minorities, etc.) fall somewhere down below. And it all makes perfect sense if you support it with a few appropriately (mis)quoted verses from the Bible.

With dualistic conceptions of good and evil and hierarchical notions of value and worth, it becomes easy to know who it is okay to hate or to bully or, seemingly more benignly, to ignore. And no institutions have done more to create and perpetuate the public disapproval of gay and lesbian people than churches.

If anti-gay bullying has, at any level, an embodied undercurrent of tacit theological legitimation, then we simply cannot circumvent our responsibility to provide a clear, decisive, theological response. Aside from its theological base, anti-gay bullying is a theological issue because it calls for acts of solidarity on behalf of the vulnerable and justice on behalf of the oppressed.

But this imperative to respond reminds us that the most dangerous form of theological message comes in the subtlest of forms: silence.

The longer we wait, the more young people die

There is already a strong religious presence in the debate around anti-bullying education in schools. Unfortunately, it is not a friendly voice for LGBT teens. There is also no lack of rhetoric on sexuality stemming from theological sources. But the loudest voices are not the voices of affirmation and embrace. In a recent article, I urged churches that rest comfortably in a tacitly welcoming or pseudo-affirming position to come out and publicly proclaim their places of worship as truly welcoming and affirming sanctuaries for people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.

I cannot count the number of times I have heard well-meaning, good-hearted people respond to this appeal, saying, “Things are a lot better for gay people today than they were several years (or decades) ago. In time, our society (or churches) will come around on this issue.” To these friends and others, I must say, “It’s time.” For Lucas, Brown, Clementi, Walsh, and Chase the time is up. For these teens and the myriad other bisexual, transgender, lesbian and gay youth lost to suicide, the waiting game hasn’t worked so well.

As simply as I can state the matter: The longer we wait to respond, the more young people die.

If this were a hostage situation, we would have dispatched the SWAT team by now. And in many ways, it is. Our children and teenagers are being held hostage by a religious and political rhetoric that strives to maintain the status quo of anti-gay heterosexist normativity. The messages of Focus on the Family and other organizations actively strive to leave the most vulnerable among us exposed to continuous attack. The good news is that we don't need a SWAT team. We just need quality education on sexuality and gender identity in our schools and more faithful and courageous preaching and teaching in our churches.

Catholic theologian M. Shawn Copeland offers profound words to any individuals and churches seeking to wash their hands of this issue. She states,

“If my sister or brother is not at the table, we are not the flesh of Christ. If my sister’s mark of sexuality must be obscured, if my brother’s mark of race must be disguised, if my sister’s mark of culture must be repressed, then we are not the flesh of Christ. For, it is through and in Christ’s own flesh that the ‘other’ is my sister, is my brother; indeed, the ‘other’ is me…”

If anti-gay bullying is a theological issue, perhaps what is called for is a creative theological response. A theological response that challenges the systematic violence that upholds an oppressive religious and cultural ideology will not be a response through which we can hedge our bets. It will be a full-bodied, whole-hearted giving of ourselves to the repair of the flesh of Christ divided by injustice and systematic exclusion.

Ministers who remain in comfortable silence on sexuality must speak out. Churches that have silently embraced gay and lesbian members for years must publically hang the welcome banner. How long will we continue to limit and qualify our messages of acceptance, inclusion and embrace for the most vulnerable in order to maintain the comfort of those in our communities of faith who are well served by the status quo?

In the current climate, equivocating messages of affirmation are overpowered by the religious rhetoric of hatred. Silence only serves to support the toleration of bullying, violence and exclusion. In the face of what has already become the common occurrence of LGBT teen suicide, how long can we wait to respond?

8 comments:

In an editorial entitled "the law is an ass"in the Washington Post and repeated on the USCCB media blog,the spokewoman for the bishops, Sister Walsh critized Judge Walker's findings of fact in his decision on the unconstituionality of prop 8 because it erroneously cited the Roman Catholic teachings as bigotry. This is part of my response ",,,contrary to what Sister Walsh and others claim that the moral teachings of various religions should not be examples of religious speakers who incite harsh treatment of homosexuals in fact the very harshness of these moral teachings laid out before us to see do violence in and of themselves and incite the very violence they disingenously condemn. In 1992, the Vatican declared that discrimination against gays was “not unjust” if it involved adoption, foster care, teaching or military service.It is obvious to gay people and it should be obvious to Catholics that the Church does them harm in fact she persecutes them with the same mentality once reserved for the Jews.This is just another example of episcopal malpractice and we all know what the other one was."

Bullying is very widely experienced in schools, for almost any reason. I was bullied because I was a "brain," and because I was poor at sports. I knew a number of kids bullied because their parents were dirt poor, and one because his parents were known to be quite rich. Some kids were bullied because they were known to be virgins, and others because they had a reputaion as promiscuous.

The notion that changing social attitudes on homosexuality will decrease bullying strikes me as very naive. I suspect, if it happened, kids would then be bullied for being "homophobes." Bullies seek to hurt for its own sake, not because they hold a theological view of sexuality naturally tied to procreation.

For myself and my own children, the answer can come in the recognition of the cowardice at the heart of bullying, and the hard but important lesson that what stupid and vicious people think of you doesn't really matter.

Susan - as always a wonderfully articulated piece. I just learned of a video produced by a young gay person from Maine (my home state I am proud to say) that describes his experience coming out in a Pentecostal environment. It is a very moving piece; I hope that you get a chance to check it out.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxfWl1vA1u4

From what you described, I suspect Mr. Allan you were bullied because you were perceived as being gay.

While I think it naif of you to imply that societal attitudes have no impact on children I think what is addressed here is not the recognition that one will not escape cruelty but how to survive it and not be abandonned especially when the grownup theological bullies impart a viciousness that pervades much of the debate. When through willfull ignorance, the Church engages in condemnation of the love and expression of love to a whole group of people and uses its teaching authority to call them disordered then evades the responsability of damage this inflicts on the young and vulnerable not only by bullies but by self-loathing and internalized homophobia condemns the Church itself as the abuser and bully in chief.

Rick Allen said, For myself and my own children, the answer can come in the recognition of the cowardice at the heart of bullying, and the hard but important lesson that what stupid and vicious people think of you doesn't really matter.

Good words, but it isn't just what stupid and vicious people think. It's also what one's pastor and political representative and adult neighbor and radio or TV commentator think and say (often shout) that lowers one's feeling of self worth to a point where the bullying puts them over the edge.

May I suggest to parents of bullied children. Do not ignore the first signs. Stop everything. Take your child out of school today. I repeat, Drop everything and focus on your vulnerable child. Homeschooling is the obvious and very necessary choice. Homeschoolers are very welcoming to all types of children and families. They 'get it'. Find a way to make it work. Move in with Grandparents if you have to. Down size. Sell your car. Move into a small apt. Your child's Life depends on it. If you wont do this, then you only have your self to blame.

If your child is the bully.... take swift & immediate action. Take a break from your attitude of keeping up with the Material World, stop confusing your child with your divorces and remarriages, and divorces and exciting new love life. Teach gentleness & caring values to your children. Find a church that will teach humility to the whole family.

A recent poll published said tht 43% of school kids said they had been "cyber-bullied" alone. This is not a particular problems of gay teens, and it is certainly not going to be solved by pulling kids out of school.

The issue is usually a breach of privacy--and, for that reason, since I post here under my real name, I'm certainly not going to go into any stories about my own children. Suffice it to say that the key is always asking and talking freeely about these sorts of issues, and taking problems to staff and teachers when they arise.

I do not buy the idea that failure to abandon a pre-1960's conception of chastity is somehow responsible for teen suicide. Last year the media was full of stories of young girls who killed themselves because nude pictures of themselves "sexed" to their boyfriends were subsequently shared publicly. No one in their right mind suggested that the problem was excess prudery and that our failure to adopt the tenents of nudism was responsible for these tragedies.

In all these deaths the self was breached and the defenses of the vulnerable crumbled. The reasons for each will be particular though all shared an ignition of the attacker.

In its pre 1960s veiw of chastity the hetereosexist Church gives no out for gay people but in the words of Paul would let them burn. It invites them into self- loathing.

Tragically gay teens who attempt suicide have a greater grasp of their ontology that is so easiy denigrated and denounced as disordered by the supremely arrogant, morally idiotic heterosexist Church.

Gay teens have significantly higher rates of both attempts and thoughts of suicide. In his study on gay teen suicide, Patrick Healy concluded that gay teens are "five times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers"(2001). And fully one third of all teen suicides are attributed to gay teens.

In this sick society we live in every gay person understands this incalculated self-loathing and the existentialist threat. No gay person that arrives at a measure of true self esteem and acceptance buys into this crap of "pre 1960 chastity". The pathology lies with the teachings not within gay people.

Welcome to my blog ...

... where I try to be really clear about what I'm clear about. For example:

Religious persecution is when you're prevented from exercising your beliefs, not when you're prevented from IMPOSING your beliefs.

========

Until we end the blatant and indefensible discrimination of DOMA we are not living up to the pledge we make to be a nation of liberty and justice for all, we are not providing the equal protection guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to same-sex couples and we are failing to defend the self-evident truth that our forbearers fought to protect: that ALL people are created equal.

============ Using "biblical standards" to condemn those who understand that sexual orientation is morally neutral makes as much sense as using "biblical standards" to condemn astronomers who understand that the earth revolves around the sun. The Bible may have said it but that doesn't always settle it. ============ It's liberty and justice for all -- not some. It's respect the dignity of every human being -- not just straight ones. Got it? Great. Let's do it.

====== In order to keep moving forward toward liberty and justice for all we can't just be right about what the 1st Amendment protects. We have to be smart about how we respond to those who skipped the 9th Commandment and think lying is a Traditional Family Value. ======= Jesus said "Love your neighbor." Not "Love your neighbor unless your neighbor is gay."

Basic Bio

A cradle Episcopalian second generation Dodger fan ENFJ native of Los Angeles I was ordained in 1996 and currently serve as a Senior Associate at All Saints Church, Pasadena.
My family consists of my wife Lori, 2 dogs, (Hillary & Chelsea), 3 cats (Maui, Cherokee and Harold) and our four young adult kids: Jim (married to the awesome Kelly), Brian, Grace and Emily.
My life in the church has included everything from Junior Altar Guild with my Aunt Gretchen to my “obligatory young adult lapsed phase” to a tour of duty on the St. Paul’s, Ventura vestry where I also worked as parish secretary to a life-heart-soul changing experience as part of the Cursillo community to serving on my parish ECW Board to seminary at the School of Theology in Claremont to associate/day school chaplain positions at St. Mark’s, Altadena and St. Peter’s, San Pedro to Executive Director of Claiming the Blessing to my current parish position at All Saints Church. It’s been a long and winding road and the journey continues: an inch at a time.

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This blog is the personal weblog of one Susan Lynn Russell. The opinions expressed herein are hers and hers alone. The postions taken on matters theological or political (or anything else, for that matter) are in no way to be construed as the official positions of any other person, institution, group or organization.

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“Faith in action is called politics. Spirituality without action is fruitless and social action without spirituality is heartless. We are boldly political without being partisan. Having a partisan-free place to stand liberates the religious patriot to see clearly, speak courageously, and act daringly.” -- Ed Bacon

“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"It's time for "tolerant" religious people to acknowledge the straight line between the official anti-gay theologies of their denominations and the deaths of these young people. Nothing short of changing our theology of human sexuality will save these young and precious lives." -- The Rt Rev Gene Robinson

"How can you initiate someone into the Body of Christ and then treat them like they’re half-assed baptized?" - The Rt Rev Barbara Harris

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” ~ Elie Wiesel, 1986 Nobel Peace Prize

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"I'm so glad Mary didn't wait for the formulation of a Doctrine of the Incarnation before she said 'Yes' to God." -- Ed Bacon

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“We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief. Nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief. At the same time as our constitution prohibits state religion, establishment of it protects the free exercise of all religions. And walking this fine line requires government to be strictly neutral.” -- Ronald Reagan

Let's be clear. The fact that the State authorizes a marriage in no way compels any Church to perform or recognize it. Marriage equality merely guarantees equality under the law to all citizens; it does not compel churches to do anything.-- Katherine Ragsdale